Trump’s 2016 Campaign Promise to Protect Classified Information During His Administration Goes Viral

Alex GriffingAug 15th, 2022, 2:30 pm
 

A clip of then-candidate Donald Trump vowing to protect classified information during a 2016 campaign stop went viral on Monday as critics called out the hypocrisy surrounding the issue and the former president.

“On political corruption, we are going to restore honor to our government. In my administration, I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law,” Trump says in the clip from a campaign event in Charlotte, North Carolina on August 18, 2016.

Trump’s attacks on his then-opponent, Hillary Clinton, and her alleged mishandling of classified information featured prominently in his 2016 campaign and even led to him strengthening laws regarding classified information.

“Hillary Clinton put her emails on a secret server nobody knew about except for the man that was giving the Fifth, remember? What ever happened to him? Where is he? What happened to him? Where did he go? He pled the Fifth. Never heard – that’s the end of him…She put her emails on a secret server to cover up her pay-for- play scandal in the State Department,” Trump raged at another 2016 campaign stop in September of 2106 in Philadelphia.

On January 18, 2018, Trump signed S. 139 into a law. The bill, which Trump supported, edited 18 U.S. Code §1924, which originally read:

Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.

Philip Bump in the Washington Post explains all the various maneuverings around the law but notes the end result was that Trump increased the punishment for mishandling classified information and made the violation a federal felony. The law now reads that those convicted of violating the law “shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.”

The search warrant executed during the raid of Trump’s residence, released on Friday, confirmed that the FBI recovered 11 sets of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, which could indeed be a violation of the very law Trump strengthened.

The clip initially shared by CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski was quickly retweeted and commented on by pundits across the media, many of whom roasted the former president.

Here are a few examples:

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Alex Griffing - Senior Editor

Alex Griffing is a Senior Editor at Mediaite. Send tips via email: alexanderg@mediaite.com. Follow him on Twitter: @alexgriffing